Open Access
Precautionary spatial protection to facilitate the scientific study of habitats and communities under ice shelves in the context of recent, rapid, regional climate change
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, the authors highlight why commercial fishing activities should not be permitted in these habitats, and suggest that areas under existing ice shelves in Subareas 88.3, 48.1 and 48.5 should be preserved and protected for scientific study.Abstract:
Recent rapid climate change is now well documented in the Antarctic, particularly in the Antarctic Peninsula region. One of the most evident signs of climate change has been
ice-shelf collapse; overall, 87% of the Peninsula’s glaciers have retreated in recent decades. Further ice-shelf collapse will lead to the loss of existing marine habitats and to the creation of new habitats, with consequent changes in both ecological processes and in community structure. Habitats revealed by collapsed ice shelves therefore offer unique scientific opportunities. Given the complexity of the possible interactions, and the need to study these in the absence of any other human-induced perturbation, this paper highlights why commercial fishing activities should not be permitted in these habitats, and suggests that areas under existing ice shelves in Subareas 88.3, 48.1 and 48.5 should be preserved
and protected for scientific study. The boundaries of these areas should henceforth remain fixed, even if the ice shelves recede or collapse in the future. Designation of areas under ice shelves as areas for scientific study would fulfil one of the recommendations made by the Antarctic Treaty Meeting of Experts in 2010.read more
Citations
More filters
Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience and de la capacite d'adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socioecologique (socio-ecologigal systems -SES) afin de comprendre and anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme.
Journal ArticleDOI
Consensus management in Antarctica's high seas – past success and current challenges
Jessica A. Nilsson,Jessica A. Nilsson,Elizabeth A. Fulton,Elizabeth A. Fulton,Marcus Haward,Craig R. Johnson +5 more
TL;DR: The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) has managed the ecosystems of the high seas of the Southern Ocean since 1982 as discussed by the authors, and is seen as an example of best practice in managing marine resources in international waters.
Journal ArticleDOI
Update on the global abundance and distribution of breeding Gentoo Penguins ( Pygoscelis papua)
TL;DR: The assessment identifies South Georgia and sub-Antarctic islands in the Indian Ocean as being the most critical data gaps for this species and suggests that the global population has increased by approximately 11% since 2013, with even greater increases along the WAP.
Journal ArticleDOI
Southern Ocean fishery management - Is CCAMLR addressing the challenges posed by a changing climate?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors evaluate the extent to which these recommendations have been implemented in the global and regional legal frameworks, the flexibility and resilience to tackle climate change of the provisions can be assessed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Utilising IPCC assessments to support the ecosystem approach to fisheries management within a warming Southern Ocean
Rachel D. Cavanagh,Philip N. Trathan,Simeon L. Hill,Jess Melbourne-Thomas,Jess Melbourne-Thomas,Michael P. Meredith,Philip R. Hollyman,Bjørn A. Krafft,M. Muelbert,Eugene J. Murphy,Martin Sommerkorn,John Turner,Susie M. Grant +12 more
TL;DR: The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is aware of the urgent need to develop climate-responsive options within its ecosystem approach to management.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Ice-Shelf Melting Around Antarctica
TL;DR: Detailed glaciological estimates of ice-shelf melting around the entire continent of Antarctica show that basal melting accounts for as much mass loss as does calving, making ice- shelf melting the largest ablation process in Antarctica.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ice sheet grounding line dynamics: Steady states, stability, and hysteresis
TL;DR: In this paper, the results of boundary layer theory for ice flux in the transition zone against numerical solutions that are able to resolve the transition zones were verified. But the results were not applied to the large-scale dynamics of a marine ice sheet.
Journal ArticleDOI
Retreating glacier fronts on the Antarctic Peninsula over the past half-century.
Alison J. Cook,Alison J. Cook,Adrian J. Fox,Adrian J. Fox,David G. Vaughan,David G. Vaughan,Jane G. Ferrigno,Jane G. Ferrigno +7 more
TL;DR: The continued retreat of ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula has been widely attributed to recent atmospheric warming, but there has been little published work describing changes in glacier margin positions as discussed by the authors, which suggests that this may not be the sole driver of glacier retreat in this region.
Journal ArticleDOI
Trends in Antarctic annual sea ice retreat and advance and their relation to El Niño–Southern Oscillation and Southern Annular Mode variability
Sharon Stammerjohn,Sharon Stammerjohn,Douglas G. Martinson,Douglas G. Martinson,Raymond C. Smith,Xiaojun Yuan,David Rind +6 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors utilized the full temporal (quasi-daily) resolution of satellite-derived sea ice data to track spatially the annual ice edge advance and retreat from 1979 to 2004.
Journal ArticleDOI
Warming of the Southern Ocean since the 1950s.
TL;DR: Autonomous Lagrangian Circulation Explorer floats recorded temperatures in depths between 700 and 1100 meters in the Southern Ocean throughout the 1990s, suggesting that mid-depth Southern Ocean temperatures have risen 0.17°C between the 1950s and the 1980s.
Related Papers (5)
Antarctic environments and resources : a geographical perspective
James D. Hansom,John E. Gordon +1 more